Late medieval chivalric and courtly culture was characterized by
display—or, to use Thorstein Veblen’s term, “conspicuous
consumption.”1 Splendid clothing, armor, jewels,
lavish food and table settings, ritual and spectacle of all kinds
(tournaments, theatrical entertainments, pageants, processions,
royal entries)—all these things were means by which the courtly
class defined itself and presented itself to the world. Malcolm
Vale has spoken of “the increasing sacralization of the secular” in
the courts of the period: “A more formal, ritualized element
gradually invaded the domestic life of princely courts, receiving
its most marked—and often extravagant—expression at court feasts in
which vows were taken, elaborate interludes and
entremets introduced, and a more dramatic and
theatrical dimension brought to the holding of ‘full’ or ‘solemn’
courts.”2 The court of Richard II was notorious
for this kind of extravagant display.3 Nigel Saul
calls him “an extravagant, luxury-loving prince. His tastes were
expensive and he took a delight in beautiful objects. He owned a
large and valuable collection of goldsmiths’ work and plate. He was
lavish in his spending on clothing, jewelry, tapestry and
objets d’art generally: according to the Evesham
chronicler, on one occasion he spent no less than £20,000 on a robe
[decorated] with precious stones.”4 Already in
the early years of his reign, there were complaints about the costs
of Richard’s household, although at this period, according to Chris
Given-Wilson, they were not, comparatively speaking, excessive.
There were cutbacks in the 1380s, but from 1393 onward domestic
expenditure climbed dramatically, reaching more than £35,000 in
each of the last three years of his reign.5

Royal extravagance attracted criticism and controversy from some
quarters. The alliterative poem known as Richard the
Redeless (written around the time of Richard’s
deposition)6 contains an indignant account of the
extravagant attire favored by courtiers. Citing the text from
Matthew’s gospel (11:8), “They that are clothed in soft garments,
are in the houses of kings,” the author complains that the
courtiers care for nothing other than “quentise of clothinge”
(elegance of clothing) (III.176; cf. 120, 122). Their cloaks are
wide and their sleeves are so long that they “slide on the erthe”
(III.131, 152). They wear gold chains and ornament their belts and
drinking-horns with silver (III.140). They run themselves into debt
in order to buy expensive furs (III.148–51). Their garments are
ornamented with “dagging,” the edges cut into elaborate shapes,
which costs ten times more for the stitching than for the cloth
itself (III.162–69). These complaints are, as Patricia Eberle has
put it, an indication that “the tradition of dress as a form of
investment had become at the court of Richard II what we would now
call investment dressing.”7 Toward the end of
Richard the Redeless, the personified figure of Wisdom
appears at court, clad in “the olde schappe,” “in an holsum gyse”
(III.212–13); predictably, he is rudely ejected by the well-dressed
courtiers.

So much for the prosecution, but there was also a contemporary
case for the defense. In the same article, Patricia Eberle also
drew attention to the justification of courtly luxury found in a
Latin treatise written by Roger Dymmok, a Dominican friar, in
response to the twelve Lollard propositions contained in a document
(purportedly) fixed to the door of Westminster Hall during the
session of Parliament in 1395.8 His treatise is
dedicated to Richard II, and the manuscript now at Trinity Hall,
Cambridge (MS 17) was evidently a presentation copy. Most of the
Lollard propositions criticized the failings of the established
Church, but the twelfth concerned secular life: it claimed that “þe
multitude of craftis nout nedful” (such as goldsmiths and armorers)
should be abolished, because they encourage “wast, curiosite and
disgysing” (that is, elaborate display and fancy
clothing).9 In answer to this, Dymmok
distinguished between two types of “necessity”: first, there are
those things needed simply to sustain life, but second, there are
those things necessary to live decently (“conuenienter”). Drawing
on Aristotle’s discussion of “magnificence,” or “the art of
spending money lavishly,” in the Nicomachaean Ethics
(IV.ii...

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